


born as the sixth month rises

by Vestas_Kitchen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boy-Who-Lived Draco, Gen, Theory Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 20:43:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11676726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vestas_Kitchen/pseuds/Vestas_Kitchen
Summary: For a second, can we forget a world of red-lined robes and bright green eyes, of divided sides and cupboards under the stairs? Let’s look, instead, at something a little bit different, where the Dark Lord’s equal was not born as the seventh month dies, but born as the sixth month rises. Let’s talk about how, as far as we know and Tom Riddle knew, there was only one person who fit that, and he belonged to a family allied with him, loyal to him.Let’s talk about Draco Malfoy.





	born as the sixth month rises

For a second, can we forget a world of red-lined robes and bright green eyes, of divided sides and cupboards under the stairs? Let’s look, instead, at something a little bit different, where the Dark Lord’s equal was not born as the seventh month dies, but born as the sixth month rises. Let’s talk about how, as far as we know and Tom Riddle knew, there was only one person who fit that, and it was not Harry Potter, it was not Neville Longbottom, and in fact it was not a Weasley or a Granger or a Thomas or a Diggory or anyone we know that was fighting against the Dark Lord but belonged to a family allied with him, loyal to him.

Let’s talk about Draco Malfoy.

Let’s talk about how the Dark Lord would not even need a traitor this time, there would be no need for a Peter Pettigrew. All he would have to do is Floo or fly to the house, and far from running, Lucius would bow to him rather than face him before meeting a simple flash of green.

Let’s talk about who would go to Wiltshire to pick up a screaming child, newly-scarred, next to the body of his mother, freshly-cold, whose lineage was so refined against Lily Potter’s, but was not so different that she would not fight and scream and beg for the safety of her only child, that she would still offer her life in exchange despite her knowing how truly futile it would be.

Hagrid knew the Potters, been friendly with them, but he had known the Malfoys differently. So instead, someone was sent who knew purebloods, who moved in their circles- not so much as to have known the Dark Lord as he now was, but enough to still be on familiar terms with the darkest of families.

Horace Slughorn would not have the pleasure of Sirius Black’s flying motorbike after stepping over the dead eyes of Lucius and Narcissa, nor would he have the peace of a sleeping baby on his journey. Draco would cry and scream as he was taken away in the cold of the early November morning, not by bike and not by Floo, but a simple, uncomfortable pop as they shifted halfway across the country.

Lily had died for Harry, which tied him to Evans blood; Narcissa died for Draco, which bound him to the Blacks.In the November of 1980, there were four living Blacks, and only two even vaguely suitable to raise a child who defeated Voldemort- Sirius, who had hated the Malfoys and was at his age incapable of leading a quiet life, and Andromeda, who already had a seven-year old child, lived inconspicuously among Muggles, and amongst the purebloods, was already considered dead.

Draco would not be left on a doorstep, but quietly bounced on a knee while Andromeda listened to her old Potions Master and mourned her youngest sister, whom she had not spoken to in eight years. There would be no screams as milk bottles were left out, but silence after Draco was tucked into Nymphadora’s old baby bed, tears falling heavy and hard for a couple who would not have appreciated them in life.

But let’s talk about the night of November the first, which was just as jubilant as another in a different world. Owls still ran across the sky, stars still fell across Surrey, but instead of grinning on the television, Ted the weatherman seemed tired and forced, haggard after comforting his wife, under the excuse of just having an unexpected arrival. But there were others, just as there had been in a different world, who looked to each other and wondered what the Dark Lord had wanted with this one family dead, what Draco Malfoy was really capable of.

But while optimists celebrated and cynics pondered, there was another side. In both worlds this side was angry and in mourning, but the difference was that this time, they were also betrayed. They cursed into the night sky and glared at each other over fine wine whilst pitying their own stupidity. All in all, by November the second, Lord Voldemort had far fewer followers than he would ever have in any other world.

That’s not to say that he did not have some, because like in another world, a house was broken into and minds destroyed, but instead of any real connection, this family was merely close to the Malfoys, and unlike in another world of tutoring and business and parties, Olaf and Azalea Parkinson would instead sit blank-faced at the walls of St Mungo’s.

* * *

But let’s go back to Draco Malfoy, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived. Let’s talk about him playing with his big sister, and being the only one to be allowed to call her by her first name. Let’s talk about the first time he crashed his toy broom into a tree and Andromeda ran out to check on him, but he was already pulling himself back on. Let’s talk about him tearing the wrapping paper off an enormous anonymous box of crystallised pineapple every birthday and every Christmas, and then eating far too much jelly and running around so fast that he’d be sick.

Let’s talk about how Draco wasn’t allowed to go to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters when he was five, and crying because he didn’t believe that his big sister would ever come home. Let’s talk about how Draco couldn’t go to school with Lucius’s blond hair and Narcissa’s grey eyes because there could always be someone waiting around a corner who blamed or suspected him.

Let’s talk about the first time he looked at Andromeda and called her mummy, and then she had to tell him that his mummy had died a long, long time ago.

But let’s talk about Draco naming the stars on clear nights with Auntie Andy and Uncle Ted teaching him the difference between each type of cloud in the sky and in the springtime going out and watering the daffodils because they were called Narcissus, and that was as close to Narcissa as he was going to get and he wanted to say hello in his own way.

* * *

Let’s talk about the fifth of June 1989, when the owls first came. There was never going to be any running away, and Draco went to Diagon Alley with his hair magicked bright red and his eyes blue.

There were still robes and books and ice cream to be bought, but his wand would   of hawthorn, not holly, and instead of a core twinned with the man who had declared himself his greatest enemy, there had only ever been two wands cut from this one hawthorn tree, and that wand had belonged to Narcissa Black. There would be no snowy owl, who would wait another month to be bought by a different boy, but instead, a scared-looking albino kitten called Barnum went home with the Chosen One.

Let’s talk about the first time Draco truly went outside with his hair and his eyes the right colour, and how he got on the train with his big sister when he was eleven and she was seventeen, and he leaned out of the train window to wave goodbye to Andromeda and Ted, who whilst not his parents, loved him like a son and were to closest thing to parents that he would ever know.

Let’s talk about the people that Draco would meet on the train- Harry Potter would be sarcastic and witty, and Neville Longbottom would be his cautious anchor. Ron Weasley would not be in awe of this Chosen One but might offer him a corned beef sandwich. Hermione Granger would be overwhelming, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle would give him a standard nod, but Pansy Parkinson, shuffled around from distant relative to distant relative, practically raised by house elves and knowing that her parents would never recognise her, would pull him into a carriage, give him a strip of Drooble’s Gum and tell him that they were going to be best friends from now on, because Pansy had lost something too, and there is mutual solace in loss.

When Draco Malfoy put the Sorting Hat on his head it would not instantly shout Slytherin, but it wouldn’t take long for it to shout Hufflepuff instead, because Nymphadora was there, and underneath the Slytherin ambition of hundreds of purebloods over the years there was loyalty to friends, loyalty to family, and loyalty to what the believed in, and things were going to change. For Pansy, it still said Slytherin, because some things do not.

There would still be a three-headed dog and multiple challenges to face that year, but this year it would not be a trio of Gryffindors but a Hufflepuff, a Slytherin, a Gryffindor, and a Hufflepuff’s older sister, because Hermione Granger really didn’t care one jot about houses, and with Neville instead of Ron, Harry would never go after a mountain troll. Instead, it would be Pansy and Draco throwing bits of broken porcelain at its thick ankles, and the staff would come running at Neville and Harry’s information, and there are still some experiences you can’t go through without being friends afterwards.

There would be no visit to the Mirror of Erised because Draco went home for Christmas, and ate turkey and pulled wizard crackers as Harry Potter and Ron Weasley- who would still be friends, but not maybe as close as they might have been- stalked in the dungeons of Hogwarts under an Invisibility Cloak and found it themselves, and dreamed of success and glory together.

This time, however, on a final quest for the stone, there would be no logic quiz, because without Lily Potter’s life at risk, Severus Snape had no reason to become a spy, and was not the Potions Master at Hogwarts. Instead, it was a game of chance of trying to find which substance was not poisoned to walk through a wall of flame. It would have been difficult for Quirrell, who had needed to test each substance, but Draco knew, because he knew his Potions Master, and knew that he would not be able to bear the thought of poisoning crystallised pineapple.

So instead of a single Gryffindor walking into an empty room to face the Dark Lord, two Hufflepuffs did instead, because Pansy had offered to get help for Hermione after reluctantly sacrificing her in chess. An eleven-year-old stood in front of a mirror whilst his big sister was at wandpoint and saw a stone, and burned his teacher away with magic that wasn’t his own.

* * *

There would be no Nymphadora next year, which was probably a good thing, because Tom Riddle looked as kindly to children of blood traitors as he did to the children of Muggles, but there would still be a diary and a basilisk. Lucius Malfoy would not give a diary to Ginny Weasley because there was no Lucius Malfoy, and instead, it would fall into the hands of a young Ravenclaw named Theodore Nott.

The Dark Lord was not stupid and spirited away his oldest Horcrux weeks before he killed Lucius and Narcissa, and entrusted it to Patroclus Nott, who had once been loyal to Voldemort but had driven himself for years to the destruction of it. As things change, knowing that the diary was almost impossible to destroy, Theodore’s goal had changed- he was still ambitious, and the hat had offered him Slytherin, but his desire to know was greater than his desire to succeed.

Theodore took the diary voluntarily, and although he never wrote in it, all that was required was an emotional attachment, and hate and curiosity are strong enough.

But this time when the cat was Petrified and chicken blood was smeared on the walls, the message had vanished in days, because Slytherins knew who called himself the Heir of Slytherin, and Slytherins no longer wished to have any association with him.

There would still be a duelling club and Draco would still be able to speak Parseltongue, and suspicion would still be raised among some, but there would be less, because when a Hufflepuff stands up and says something, the rest of Hufflepuff stands behind him.

Dumbledore would not be removed and Hagrid would not, but attacks would be more frequent and more indiscriminate- Tom Riddle would consider traitors to him as equal to blood traitors, and he had very few friends at Hogwarts. This time, by chance, Hermione would go to the library on a different day, and there would be a death- Penelope Clearwater, who was lucky in one world, and not so in another.

Then maybe Theodore would try to destroy the diary by any means possible, and once he got too close to something that might work, Tom would spirit him away to the Chamber. Because there had been no Polyjuice, they would not know to search the bathrooms, but they were desperate, so Hermione said they should ask a ghost for any information, and it was good luck that Pansy suggested Myrtle and not the Baron.

Gilderoy Lockhart would not follow them into a Chamber, but he would be gone by the end of the year because even if she was never offered Slytherin, Minerva McGonagall really would use any means to achieve her ends.

Instead, three second-years descended into the Chamber, armed and practised with the Conjunctivitis Curse, and there was no collapse. Draco would defend Dumbledore and shield Theodore, Pansy would seal the basilisk’s eyes shut tight, and Hermione would find the sword and run it through the basilisk’s clogged eye all the way through to its brain.

They would defeat the snake, but be covered with its burning, blistering blood and Theodore would still be dying and Riddle would still be gloating, but Draco would take the sword from Hermione, and look Riddle straight in the eye and plunge it into the diary and watch him burn in front of him, because with loyalty comes a certain amount of mercilessness.

Fawkes would still be there and take them out, and there would be no need for the school to be closed. Penelope Clearwater’s funeral would be held at home in Finchley and Draco would send his condolences. Theodore Nott would not ever consider himself to be their friend, despite what the other three told him, and resigned himself to being called an ally.

* * *

Like in another world, the Boy Who Lived had a godfather in Azkaban, but this one never escaped. Instead, he was brought out at the request of Dumbledore, who required his services not as a spy, but as a Potions Master. Horace Slughorn was accomplished, but he was unable to brew a Wolfsbane Potion, and Remus Lupin would be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts next year.

The arrangement was quiet, and it was agreed that Snape would remain in Dumbledore’s employ as a brewer, not a professor, until his services were no longer required, and when that was over, he would leave the country quietly.

Their third year would be quiet, compared to the last two. There would be no dementors. The presence of Severus Snape would be one of Hogwart’s worst-kept secrets, and on Halloween Draco and Pansy went to visit, Draco to learn about his parents, Pansy to make sure there was no funny business.

Severus Snape had had twelve years in Azkaban to mope and regret, but he did have some slight shreds of humanity left, and although he made it quite clear that the Malfoys and the Parkinsons had held radically different views to their children, he would impart the things that he remembered of both families to them. When they brought Hermione he sneered and refused to talk about the past but he did give them Potions tips and was at the very least, civil.

Draco had always known that their parents had not been good people and so had Pansy, but he hadn’t really thought about it until he spoke to someone who had known them after Hogwarts. And it was difficult, merging two images that he had- the followers of an evil dark wizard who believed wholeheartedly in blood purity, and the betrayed, dedicated parents who had died for their son.

Snape helped, he supposed. His parents were like his godfather- raised to put their loyalty in the wrong places. Bad people, but with a few- and very few- good qualities.

But beyond that, their third year was still quiet. Draco made Chaser and Aunty Andy and Uncle Ted bought him a Nimbus 1500, which was a few years old but outclassed several of the other brooms on the pitch. He became quite good friends with Cedric Diggory, who was the fifth-year Seeker, who promised to train him as a replacement for when he left. They didn’t win the Quidditch Cup- Ravenclaw did, and Theodore, who didn’t even play Quidditch, was smug about it for weeks.

Remus Lupin was a great Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher because some things don’t change. A Hufflepuff who was terrible at Transfiguration called Sally-Anne Perks took the first boggart in their first lesson, making Professor McGonagall tap dance on top of the wardrobe. Hermione, horribly blessed with no imagination, did the same with her boggart when it emerged to tell her she’d been expelled, but Pansy kept pulling herself and Draco to the back of the queue of students, obviously hesitant to face it. Draco knew Professor Lupin noticed, but he never said anything, so he left it.

It would not be as quiet a year for Hermione, who would comment that Harry Potter was unbearable with a family friend on the staff letting him get away with murder. She would complain that the only time she got any peace was when she left the common room to play chess with Ron Weasley, which made Pansy smirk when she left.

There would be no time-turner, because Pansy and Theodore were not stupid, and had convinced Hermione last year to just take the end-of-year exams for Muggle Studies and that Divination was a waste of time. Draco would be slightly disappointed, because Hermione would have been nice to have in Muggle Studies, which was the only class he took without any of his friends, but they had Care of Magical Creatures together, and there was no threat of an executed hippogriff either, because when Crabbe got slashed for blinking too much, Draco was almost positive that he’d forgotten about it by dinner.

However, Remus Lupin would still not be able to remain for more than one year at Hogwarts, because even though Severus Snape had been teaching Horace Slughorn for a full year on how to brew the Wolfsbane Potion, even after waiting twelve years in Azkaban, he left a letter for Lily Evans in Harry Potter’s luggage, fled the country to where he couldn’t be followed, and sent as much proof as he had to the Daily Prophet that Remus Lupin was a werewolf, and that was enough, because some things will never change.

* * *

Draco would first dream of Voldemort in a magic townhouse, served by a twitching man with floppy blond hair.  He would tell Andromeda, who would tell Dumbledore, who would be concerned but write to say it was not good to dwell on dark things. Draco would be slightly reassured, because he had no reason to distrust Dumbledore, and would let it lie in the back of his mind.

Andromeda and Ted would not be able to buy decent tickets for the Quidditch World Cup, so Draco and Hermione would stay with Pansy at her chateau in Norfolk, cared for by house-elves, where Hermione would begin her crusade for house-elf rights because some things don’t change. They would put the match on the radio and listen to Ireland win but Krum catch the Snitch over sweets and pumpkin juice and stay up late.

Beauxbaton and Durmstrang would arrive for the Triwizard Tournament, and on Halloween Fleur Delacour, Viktor Krum and Cedric Diggory would be drawn from the Goblet of Fire, as would Draco Malfoy. But when Draco said that he didn’t enter, they believed him, because a Hufflepuff wouldn’t dare sabotage another Hufflepuff.

Hermione believed him because she trusted him, Theodore believed him because he didn't think he was a complete moron, and Pansy believed him for both reasons, and she had another preoccupation. Pansy would have walked out on their Defence lesson as soon as she heard the word ‘Crucio’, and would do it again at the thought of being put under an Unforgivable. Slytherins hold the most terrible grudges, and when she wasn’t trying to keep Draco alive, rest assured that Pansy Parkinson would be trying to get Alastor Moody sacked.

Hagrid, whilst cordial with Draco, was his teacher, not his friend, and so did not tell him about the dragons- instead, it would be Ron Weasley, whose brother had told him the task, who didn’t consider himself Draco’s friend but was Hermione’s, and she was going spare trying to make sure that Draco lived through the first task. He wouldn’t take Draco out into the forest, because everyone knew there were Acromantula in the forest, but drew a rough diagram of the task plan for him, went to bed,  and it had mysteriously been planted in the Hufflepuff common room by morning for Draco and Cedric.

Draco would also have a different plan for the dragons, because whilst he was a good flier, it was not what he was best. Instead he would rely on charms, because potions would be useless unless he managed to feed them to the dragon, so Draco spent sleepless hours hoping that he could manage a Disillusionment Charm on the day, because beyond loyalty, Hufflepuffs value hard work, and the hope that the dragon did not have an excellent sense of smell.

As it turns out, Hungarian Horntails do have a rather good sense of smell. When Draco managed to return with his egg, the stadium was scorched black and the soles of his shoes were melting, which would mark him down into third place above Krum, but behind Cedric and Fleur.

The Yule Ball was a pain, but this time Hermione was believed when she said she was going with someone. They would ask, and she would say Viktor Krum, and they would believe her because she had no reason to lie.

Draco asked Pansy and she said no, because she had known him too long and she liked to make his life difficult. He would grumble that his best bet would be to ask Theodore, who simply said that he wasn’t going because if everyone was in the Hall, then no-one was watching the Restricted Section.

Draco would end up taking Lavender Brown, whom he casually knew and who was delighted to be part of the first dance. He would ask her if she was bothered about dancing again, and she said that she would find someone else to dance with, and then she would kiss him on the side of the cheek, leaving him alone and confused on the side of the dance floor.

He would end up simply chatting with Pansy and his older sister all night, because Tonks would come protecting the Acting Head of International Magical Co-operation, with Barty Crouch having gone missing, and Pansy came on her own, not caring what anyone thought.

Draco would figure out the secret of the egg just hours before Cedric told him to take a bath when a loose shelf would fall and a glass of water land on the open egg, giving it a few seconds of coherency. Like in another story, Draco would never have thought of turning to Herbology as the answer, and Neville never told him so, but a week before the task he woke to find a house-elf sitting on his chest, clutching a ball of gooey weeds, because Dobby had never received clothes, and had quietly served the house of Malfoy from the shadows for thirteen years.

He saw Fleur Delacour get rescued from the lake, and fought the mermaids to rescue both Gabrielle and Pansy, and still managed to surface before Krum. So when the points would total, he would tie with Fleur, be behind Cedric, and above Krum.

In the maze, he would send up red sparks for one champion and beat another to the trophy, because this time there was no Imperius Curse because the servant was needed elsewhere. But because chance applies everywhere, he met a different champion to the one that Harry Potter would in a different world, and this time, the spare was not Cedric Diggory, but Fleur Delacour.

Peter Pettigrew did not meet him in Little Hangleton, because he had never had any gain from becoming a traitor, and Barty Crouch Junior was there instead, having killed his father months ago, been seen in Draco’s dreams, and impersonated Alastor Moody, guiding Draco through the tasks, and Voldemort would return once again on the 24th of June.

There would be no golden web in the graveyard because there was no common core in their wands, but instead, the ghost of Narcissa Malfoy pushed all of her strength against her son’s magic because a wand always carries traces of its sisters.

Draco Malfoy would return crying and screaming and bloody with the limp body of a girl with Veela blood, and once they heard what he had to say people decided that he was mad, he was dark, and that he was really every facet of his father’s beliefs multiplied, and that the girl with Veela blood only proved it.

Draco didn’t want the money and the Delacours refused to take it, so he tried to give it to Ron, who had helped him in the first task, and when he wouldn’t have it, Draco would give it to his brothers.

* * *

Draco Malfoy would not go home for the summer because his mother’s blood magic extended to all her family, and so he went to Grimmauld Place to stay with Sirius Black. This time Grimmauld Place was not the primary headquarters because as soon as Pansy stepped one foot inside to visit she offered Dumbledore and the Order her family’s entire estate, and there was no-one else alive or sane enough to not allow her to make the offer.

Draco spent the summer amongst old Gryffindors, who had seen war once and had not looked forward to its return. He read the papers calling him an attention seeker, that he was in league with dark forces, and that there was nothing to be afraid of. When they read them, Hermione seethed and Pansy looked ready for war, but Draco could look at Theodore who had run to the Order, scared of the Dark Lord’s revenge for his attempts on the diary, and they understood them.

The need for order was greater than the need for action, and that people were terrified of Voldemort’s return.   Draco, having grown up always being safe but never feeling safe until he got to Hogwarts, and where he now loved more than any place, understood them.

There were no dementors, though Draco was taught how to produce a Patronus anyway, in theory, just in case. There were more dementor attacks than there would have been in another world, because without loyal wizards, Voldemort recruited monsters.

Draco returned to Hogwarts with more supporters than Harry Potter would have had. The children of Death Eaters knew because their parents knew, others believed because he had no reason to lie to them, despite what their parents said. If Voldemort's betrayal of the Malfoys had an effect on this world, it taught people to think about the ideas that were said. Pureblood children listened to what Voldemort said and realised he was wrong, and scared children listened to Draco Malfoy and realised that he gained nothing from Voldemort’s return.

Dolores Umbridge would still be at Hogwarts, and she would hate Draco more than she hated Harry Potter, because whilst Harry had been born at the level she perceived him to be at, Draco Malfoy had been born into an envious position and was throwing it away for Muggle Studies and half-breeds and blood traitors.

There would be no ‘I must not tell lies.’ Instead it would be ‘I must learn my place.’ Because in an old world order, Draco had forsaken his place, and in some eyes, it must be relearned.

She taught theory, and changed rules and replaced teachers, and once again a club sprang up in Defence Against the Dark Art’s place. It was suggested by Hermione Granger and organised by Draco Malfoy, but instead, it would be taught by Cedric Diggory, planned by Theodore Nott and attended by four, not three, houses of Hogwarts. It would not be called Dumbledore’s Army because names can be interpreted, and instead, it was simply 'the club'.

Here would be where Draco first cast a Patronus. It would look silly next to Pansy’s vicious cheetah, Theodore’s twittering stork and Hermione’s sleek otter, but Draco had always been fond of koalas. They were comfortable, soft and stable. They were safe.

Draco would still dream about attacking Arthur Weasley and still go to Dumbledore, and still scream when he never met his eyes because even though he was a Hufflepuff, and he understood why, he was fifteen, and he had his limits, the world was on his shoulders, and he needed to scream.

Christmas would come and go, and Draco would begin Occlumency. The real Mad-Eye Moody taught it, which irritated Pansy to no end, but Draco was determined to get Voldemort out of his head, and with enough effort, he had mostly managed it, with only traces of emotion coming through his scar on tiring days.

There would still be a breakout from Azkaban and it would be the three Lestranges who returned to the Dark Lord’s side. Pansy refused to talk about it, and the other three were reluctant to approach her. So they left it and tried not to notice when Pansy’s spells would go darker and darker every club meeting.

Marietta Edgecombe would still betray them, but this time Hermione removed her curse, because even though she didn’t forgive her, she understood her, and felt guilty, instead of justified.

Dumbledore’s name was on no piece of paper and nothing could be proved, but this time Fred and George Weasley would fly out of Hogwarts taking full responsibility for every broken rule that had happened all year.

Umbridge would not be driven out by centaurs, but by an unexpected team in a fourth-years Colin Creevey and Luna Lovegood, who had recorded every detention, scar, threat and punishment over Umbridge’s nine months as a teacher, and sent every scrap of evidence to the Quibbler. Its reputation was not stellar, but the amount of evidence produced was significant enough to warrant investigation, and even with the trust of Cornelius Fudge, Dolores Umbridge was suspended from her position.

Voldemort only managed to break Draco’s defences once, to show him a glowing orb and a shrieking Nymphadora in the Department of Mysteries. But there was no barriers and no need to fly to London because one quick message from Dumbledore to an Order insider at the Ministry could tell them if there was anyone in the prophecy room at all.

A late-night visit from an overtime worker for the Department of International Magical Co-operation would not be suspicious to anyone, and Percy Weasley, who channelled enough Slytherin to be convincingly ambitious, checked and found no-one.

This Percy Weasley had not lost a brother but had lost a girlfriend, and knew what even a fraction of Voldemort’s power was capable of. So this would be a Percy who did not betray his family, and there would be no battle at the Department of Mysteries.

The Dark Lord himself would instead come for the prophecy, leaving a concise message for the Boy-Who-Lived and all the wizarding world- a destroyed fountain, overflowing with the glassy-eyed bodies of Muggles, glowing green under the light of the Dark Mark.

* * *

Their sixth year would be much like their third year, with very little happening inside the castle. But outside, there was a new death every week, each growing steadily more savage. The Ministry had made no friends among creatures, and with so few wizards allied to him, Voldemort used the fact that he was more creature than human to appeal to him. He had dementors and giants and werewolves and hags, Acromantula and herds of centaurs,  perhaps not dark, but definitely left behind.

Draco fell into a routine- lessons, studying, Quidditch, and sessions with Dumbledore. He learned about Tom Riddle, the person, he learned about  Voldemort, the story. Dumbledore tasked him with finding Horace Slughorn’s true memory to uncover what a Horcrux was, but he underestimated the things Theodore Nott would teach himself to rid himself of a diary four years ago, because a Ravenclaw with a Slytherin’s ambition does not care what they have to do, only that they will learn it and do it.

Draco would take everyone back to the Chamber and Hermione would extract fangs at by their roots. Pansy would glare at a ruined diary and Theodore would show why he’d been brought down to the Chamber in such a rush, as Fiendfyre scorched over the tops of their heads.

But there would still be attempts on Albus Dumbledore's life, except they would not come from Draco Malfoy. There would still be a cursed necklace, but this time it would take hold of Hannah Abbott, and there would still be poisoned whiskey, but Seamus Finnegan would have to shove a bezoar down Dean Thomas’ throat. There would still be a scared child at the top of the Astronomy Tower, but it would not be Draco Malfoy. But we aren’t quite there yet.

There would be many fruitless nights in the library, pouring over books that needed permission to be read because they were dark, but for their purpose, they were not dark enough. There would be arguments and shouting and frustration and tired apologies over breakfast because they knew what they were doing was important, and they needed each other to do it.

There would be Quidditch, and Hufflepuff would not win because some things don't change, and Harry Potter would still be good, and Hermione would Confund Cormac McLaggen, and Weasley would be our King.

And at the end of the year, there would still be a cave and a potion and Inferi, and it would still all be for nothing, and Dumbledore would arrive at the top of the Astronomy Tower with Draco bound and invisible below him, withered arm blackened and toxic, and wait for a child with a horrible task to perform.

When men want power but cannot obtain it by saying what they believe, they say things that they do not believe and make promises they do not intend to keep. Tom Riddle made many promises to purebloods that were less ancient and noble than his previous followers, and some of them believed him. But whole families had betrayed him before, and now whole families needed to be tested.

Astoria Greengrass had been chosen to test her family's loyalty with the task that, in another world, had fallen to Draco Malfoy, and so she had fearfully memorised the Room of Hidden Things, had repaired a Vanishing Cabinet and stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower with a curse on the tip of her tongue and her family's death a condition of her failure, and still she could not do it.

But the Death Eaters were not there yet and there was no Severus Snape to cast it for her, so Albus Dumbledore leaned over the railings of the tower and fell to the courtyard below to save a fourteen-year-old Slytherin's soul from being fractured.

Draco saw and he heard, but there would be no shouting over a grassy hill about cowardice, but the next day, in the midst of a school mourning their Headmaster, he would take her aside and say that she did what she had to do, that Dumbledore would forgive her, and that he was sorry that she had to do it at all and they cried over their shared secret together in a corridor frequented by few.

The funeral would still be held and they would all go home for the summer, but four people left Hogwarts knowing that they wouldn't be returning for their seventh year.

 

* * *

Draco could not go because he was the Chosen One, Hermione could not go because her parents were Muggles, Theodore could not go because he had already tried to kill the Dark Lord, and Pansy would not go because she was going to kill the Dark Lord.

In the summer they would show a locket to the Order with a note ending in R.A.B, and Regulus' older brother would go to bed that night cursing himself for thinking his brother deserving to be dead for seventeen years. They would find a locket and would let Theodore destroy it, in revenge for a whole year taken away.

Hermione would teach them how to act like Muggles, and there would be no camping or trailing around forests. Instead, it would be hotels and hostels and cafes paid for with the drained accounts of Nott and Parkinson. There would be more fights with monsters, and every full moon would be harrowing for them, but no-one left them, because none of them had anything to lose, with families dead, hiding, or in Australia.

But there are consequences still- Voldemort would still take over the Ministry, but he would not bother to remake it, just destroy it totally, leaving wizards with no law and no order. He would send dementors ripping through St Mungo's, leaving every Healer and patient soulless. His armies laid waste to villages because this was not a Voldemort who wanted to rule, but one that wanted to punish his betrayers. This was not a covert Voldemort who wanted to alter the wizarding world, but one who would rebuild it from scratch in his image.

There would be more deaths, both wizard and muggle than in another world, but it would not last as long at all when compared to another world's war. With no law and no-one to uphold it, it would be easy to access the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange and Pansy burned every piece of metal in the vault, leaving the cup of Helga Hufflepuff to scream.

They returned to Hogwarts on the morning of October the thirtieth, and meet the students who had retreated from the school to hide in the Room of Requirement. This time, it would be headed by Harry Potter because fewer students had opted to return at all, and Neville Longbottom had not had a choice because homes and families across Britain had been destroyed and very few were safe.

The Battle of Hogwarts would happen exactly seventeen years after the death of the Malfoys, but there would be no time for poetic justice. It would be brutal and there would be carnage, but four houses of Hogwarts would face off against Tom Riddle because they had not forgotten how quickly he chose to betray them before.

There would still be Fiendfyre in the Room of Hidden Things but it would not be cast by Vincent Crabbe but instead by Astoria Greengrass, who had resented the Dark Lord's presence in her home and the power he had over her family, had seen her teachers murdered and her sister tortured and had not felt safe for a very long time, and as soon as she heard of Ravenclaw's diadem, she lit the room aflame and walked away.

Nagini the snake would meet her end at the hands of Hermione, who had wielded Gryffindor's sword once and did so again, but she would be too late to save Nymphadora Tonks, who would lie on the floor glassy-eyed and unmoving as the ashes of the snake blew over her face.

Voldemort would not offer the castle's life for Draco's, but Draco would give it anyway because it doesn't matter who you die for if you don't care who it is, and Draco was willing to die for every person in the castle because, beyond all things, Hufflepuffs are loyal, and he would run in front of a bolt of bright green light just as his father did seventeen years ago, and Molly Weasley, whom he didn't even know, would never know that it was her life being saved that finally made Voldemort mortal.

When Draco arrived and greeted Dumbledore in a blank white garden like the one where he grew up, he did not hesitate to return to the world of the living and see Voldemort commanding his forces with facing away from him, and Draco would not wait to take one of the basilisk fangs that Hermione had ripped from a skeleton a year ago and drive it into Tom Riddle's back, because although he was a Hufflepuff, in another world, Draco Malfoy had been a Slytherin, and some things don't change.

The battle would not stop without Voldemort but his forces would falter without a leader, and they would win, at a massive cost. Lily Potter, but not James, would join the dead in the hall, and so would Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood. Minerva McGonagall would not survive the battle, and nor would all the Weasleys. Daphne Greengrass would never know how brave, how Gryffindor, her baby sister was. Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew would live but Sirius Black would not, and neither would Theodore, who had just begun to call him their friend, nor his father, who in another world would have fought at Voldemort's side.  

In another world, Andromeda Tonks had barely known her nephew, but in this once she died just minutes after she saw him stand up again, and although he was her sister's son, she knew he knew he was so much more and that she loved him equally to her own daughter, whom she never knew had died.

In another world, Pansy Parkinson had wanted to offer up the Chosen One to Voldemort and had spent to Battle of Hogwarts crying in a dungeon, but in this world, not better, just different, Pansy Parkinson was laid across the floor of the Great Hall alongside Ginny Weasley and Padma Patil. She had taken down the woman who had destroyed her parents but a wall had collapsed on her head, and although she had not killed Voldemort, we can believe that she might have smiled at her success.

* * *

 

Draco Malfoy would watch the world he grew up in be torn down and rebuilt, piece by piece. He would help, and he would recover, and the world would recover, slowly. He would talk to Hermione and watch her children while she fixed the world and joked that she would have done well in Slytherin. He stood at her wedding next to two empty chairs, and on each Halloween, he would sit down and think while staring out of the window about Penelope Clearwater, and Pansy Parkinson, and everyone he knew and everyone he didn't who died because he needed to know that someone did.

He married Astoria Greengrass, because there is mutual solace in loss, and every spring he would go out and water the daffodils because they were called Narcissus, and that was as close to Narcissa as he was going to get and he wanted to say goodbye in his own way.

 


End file.
